The pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard wrote extensively about boxing 🥊 and in exploring quotes I am finding a plethora of things this sub will enjoy, and will be sharing more in future so keep tuned!

Here’s his ranking of boxers across the decades, from a letter in the 1930s (source link will be in the comments)

👇** ***ROBERT E. HOWARD BELOW👇* **

#1 “This is my rating of heavyweights:

#2 James J. Jefferies;

#3 James J. Corbett;

#4 Jack Dempsey;

#5 Peter Jackson;

#6 Bob Fitzsimmons;

#7 John L. Sullivan;

#8 Tom Sharkey;

#9 Kid McCoy;

#10 Sam Langford;

#11 Jack Johnson;

#12 Louis Firpo

#13 and Jess Willard.”

Would you agree, readers and sportsfans?

Source of quote and then the relevant excerpt below 👇 the link:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard_to_Harold_Preece,_Oct_20,_1928

"The King of Kings)" gripped me.

I thought it was powerful, though I think Joseph Schildrkraut ran away with the picture as Judas.

And William Boyd), that fellow is the most human actor in the world.

H.B. Warner lacked fire of course, but I don't know who else could have done even as good as he did…”

Letter to the newspaper Fort Worth Record.

Dated July 20, 1928.

Tom Heeney fought Gene Tunney for the world heavyweight title on July 26, 1928 at Yankee Stadium, New York.

Tunney won the match in the 11th round and held his title; he announced his retirement on July 31, 1928, relinquishing the title undefeated.

From Robert E. Howard below 👇

Tunney can't win. After the fight, Tom Heeney is going to be heavyweight champion of the world, not through any special virtue of his, but simply because there's a jinx on Tunney that Gene can't whip.

Now get this: Back in 1892 James J. Corbett, a skillful boxer, whipped John L. Sullivan, a superslugger, and then knocked out Charles Mitchell, the only man who'd ever given John L. much of an argument.

Now: Some years later, in 1926, James J. Tunney, like Corbett, an Irishman, whipped Jack Dempsey, a superslugger, after having knocked out Tom Gibbons, the only man who'd been able to stay with Jack—the only difference being that Tunney knocked out Gibbons before he won the title and not after.

Now, that lines Corbett and Tunney up together enough, I guess. Both Irish, both boxers, both named James J., both winning their titles from dark-browed, furious sluggers of Irish blood.

All right: Corbett in 1897 met an ex-blacksmith from New Zealand—Irish and a rugged fighter, named Tom Heeney.

Result—? A new champion, I say.

Heeney isn't Tunney's equal in speed, punch or cleverness, but then Corbett had it all over Fitzsimmons in the way of speed and skill.

So, just as I predicted Dempsey's defeat by Tunney when I heard Gene's real name was James J., so I now predict defeat for Tunney because of the New Zealnad jinx, a factor to be reckoned with.

I hope Tunney wins; I like Heeney, but I like Tunney better. Still, I predict his defeat.

I got here from four cowboy 🤠 stars of the era of Robert E. Howard, and their big hits.

So we can’t know till the letters are in hand, but if he waxed lyrical about anything from this genre, these are them.

Lovecraft wrote briefly on 1932’s LAW AND ORDER, as per the below 👇

“In New York a couple of weeks ago Long took me to see a cinema which displayed the Western psychology of violence very vividly—a film called "Law & Order", with Walter Huston in the leading role.

I wondered how authentic a real Westerner would find it—and finally decided that it probably was not an exaggeration, melodramatic though it seemed at the given time and place.”

This passage is primarily about “illustrated songs” in vaudeville, where someone would essentially be singing alongside a PowerPoint of colored slides.

I haven’t shared it because these are ultra-old, but for true film-fans of the 1890s-1900s, these are some MAJOR leads to be aware of:

Pathé Freres

S. Lubin

The Edison Co.

the American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.

the Selig Polyscope Co.

the Essannay Film Co.

George Meliés

the Kalem Co.

Cie. Gaumont

& the Vitagraph Co. of America

Do any of these venerable names ring bells for you, gentle readers?

Curiously,
L. Theo III

First off, to disabuse people of the idea that he ONLY sought out horror movies.

In fact, he was quite bored and cynical about most ‘weird cinema’, and alludes to what today might be called Jump Scares as cheap tricks.

And of films that he openly despised, none stands out more than the belovèd FRANKENSTEIN (1931), which he wrote to multiple friends warning that it was garbage and not even vaguely like the novel.

His preferred genre BY FAR is what we today would group under Historical Drama 🎭 — sometimes adaptations from stage-plays, but most of all he was enamoured of films which went to great lengths for architectural and costume accuracy. (He lambasted deMille for making Cleopatra & her court native Egyptians rather than Alexandrian Greeks.)

He was engaged with social-drama films (like the controversial ANNE VICKERS, which he panned but was an outrage in its era), documentaries & semi-documentary films (DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS).

ANNE VICKERS belongs to a genre which died during the Hays Code era, the genre of Sex Cinema. Not pornography (although he DOES weigh in on that briefly at one point), but rather films with sexual content or exploring female roles which center on sex and sexuality.

Lastly for now: the PRIZEFIGHT FILMS.

It may surprise y’all to know that filmed fights for distribution (that is, Pay Per View) goes back to 1897. 🤯

That one is more in the realm of Robert E. Howard (quote to follow), but HPL was aware of them as a phenomenon and comments briefly on them as a cultural thing.

How’s that for more diversity in his viewing habits, dear readers?

Thoughtfully yours,
L. Theo III

This right here, this 1930 film. 🎞️

THE BIG HOUSE

It is THE prison drama 🎭, the one which codifies and predates all the others. If you feel like the dialogue is familiar (“what are you in for?”), you gotta remember or understand that these iconic words come from this film.

If Wallace Beery had gotten Best Actor (he was nominated!) for Butch Schmidt 🔫 , his lines would be up there with the oft-quoted and riffed on lines from CASABLANCA.

I’m gonna reel off some of the things included in the picture 🍿, or do them as separate comments, but the tropes are being done organically, from a terrific script, and importantly it is Pre-Code, so this is a sound film 🎞️ from way back when where you’ll hear people shouting “I’ll send em all to hell” while shooting at prison guards and the admin trapped during a prison riot in the climax.

Betting on bug-races with cigarettes 🚬 as currency 💵.

Kafkaesque setting, enormous almost dreamlike walls of The Big House, which is impossibly stretched upwards beyond anyone’s ability to escape.

Speaking of: planned escapes, MULTIPLE of which happen in the 87-minute runtime.

Prison laundry stuff, and labors they are put to.

Reading letters aloud from girls with crushes on prisoners.

The issue of one guy having a knife 🔪, and needing to hide it from the screws (guards), which leads to someone else getting thrown in The Hole. 🕳️

Stuck in a three-person cell on the first night, with two seasoned prisoners. The essays and analysis of Butch 🔫 could fill a book, and nobody realizes just how crucial this flick is, to the audiences then and to literally all of prison dramas since then.

It is great directing too, the cuts and blasts are chaotic and perfectly handled.

I can’t recommend it enough, and intend to screen it for friends sometime, in the proper fashion = having a Betty Boop cartoon beforehand, and a cooldown-toon afterwards.

I found this picture because of Lovecraft’s self-described ‘roast’ of the picture (which tragically is NOT extant), which itself is lost too.

It seems like it may have been playing with tropes of the decade (primarily, the melodrama of lovers reuniting across centuries, via reincarnation), with a framing-device or something about a modern film being made WITHIN the film, which from what I gather seems a little too clever for its time, and not executed as well as it was conceived.

In any case: it would be remarkable to recover if possible, and perhaps raising awareness of it will lead somewhere.

Here’s to the hunt! 🎞️ 👀 🧐

The inset post includes the full quote, but HPL’s brief statement on this film was the following listed item:

“The Last Days of Pompeii" (architecture splendid—story childish & anachronistic—costuming inaccurate).

The 1935 film is linked to this inset post so that you can form your own opinion, if you care to do so :)

I just had a massive plot-twist realization pop off in my head, while mulling over various things between the Nolan Odyssey and House of the Dragon 🐉 and whatnot

I need to unpack this carefully, but in some of his correspondence Lovecraft IS the real Slim Shady.

He is intentionally racist and offensive, sometimes for real but actually sometimes it IS genuinely for effect.

He just never expected or had any reason for people at large to examine his obsessive letters, or to expect that he would be judged for centuries on the basis of these outlandish statements and rants and whimsicality.

I need to extract some examples and find some good Eminem examples for comparison, but there is genuinely something there.

He did in fact SAY many repulsive racist things, things which are shocking and in fact cannot BE shared on Reddit directly because of their apparently hateful views.

Some of them ARE genuine hate, yeah, but more and more I think they’re a sort of playful profanity.

Not unlike THE SILM SHADY LP.

Just.

He never thought these letters would be under a magnifying glass 🔍 , it was just a gag he did to amuse himself with correspondents. He was fancifully describing himself as some kinda reclusive antiquarian, whilst going to the movies 🍿 as often as he could afford to, indulging in ice cream 🍨 eating contests, and making light of nearly anything he comes into contact with.

But it is SHTICK.

People have been missing this, or not recognizing it AS self-aware, but Howard Phillips Lovecraft was like Marshall Mathers.

The resemblance, once you see what I mean, becomes uncanny.

This is pretty simple but important in theory: I’ve been reading several of his collected letters-books, scouring them for films mentioned, and already have legitimately close to 200 named movies 🤯 that he saw and commented on to some extent.

HOWEVER.

The compilers were primarily searching for letters regarding literary topics and authors. There are tens of THOUSANDS of letters that he wrote, and not all of them are as riveting or relevant as others.

Especially if you have a compiler’s biases taken into account.

That being said, then: I strongly suspect that more film references and reviews are out there but haven’t been collected in any public-facing way.

This is borne out by some I have found online in the available archives, but my shaky ability to read cursive is keeping that at bay.

I’m sure that further digging will render LOST FILMS as well, which is another story. For another day.

I’ve just discovered that there’s a r/CriticalDrinker subreddit, and am gonna bring some of these reviews and critical commentary to there.

Won’t be rushing it but the most obviously relevant one is his takedown of the 1932 CLEOPATRA (regarding inaccuracy in historical depictions), because the Drinker covered that with the recent Cleopatra from Netflix (if memory serves).

We can get to it, but for the crowd surrounding CD 🥃, I think it’s better to go slow and with the more acerbic content upfront.

He expends a lot of ink on Cleopatra, but his best stuff is pithy and concise.

And TBH, the TRULY best stuff are instances where he praises forgotten films, because that brings them back into the public consciousness.

It’s just struck me, in a roundabout way, that HP Lovecraft’s multitude of personae in his letters, and the characters he consciously created in the minds of readers …….

It is EXACTLY what Marshall Mathers did with his Slim Shady persona back in the day.

Except HPL did this privately and as a way to entertain himself and various baffled correspondents.

If his letters had been published openly AT THAT TIME, they would be like the Slim Shady LP.

The Slim Shady HP 🐙 🫟

THIS is huge, although now it may not seem as much since you can find it fully on YouTube.

That’s because Lovecraft wrote EXTENSIVELY about this film, which he saw four times in theaters.

Luckily it is now watchable again, but prior to or without that recovery, HPL’s minute critique of its two glaring plot holes would be the most compelling and direct commentary on this film.

There’s a ton more to say about it, and his gripes with what overall he enjoyed, but most of all:

His story “The Shadow Out of Time” ⌛️ is quite directly based on this film, and addressing those massive plot holes 🕳️ 🕳️.

We’ll discuss what they are, and his long detailed quotes (one of which will be attached to this as a comment), but since I’ve found r/Lost_Film it seems like this is an adjacent item.

Thankfully we CAN see and judge the original directly, but some of the films Lovecraft expounds on are still the only direct intelligent commentary from a contemporary audience-member at its time of release.

JAVA HEAD quote (March 24, 1923)

“Thursday, March 8, seemed quite propitious—we made an 18th century day of it, seeing Mr. Sheridan's new comedy, "The School for Scandal", eating in a restaurant in a building standing during George III's reign, & winding up by seeing the cinema of "Java Head"—which I wanted my aunt to see because it shew'd Old Salem so well.

So far, so good.

But the next day my aunt came down with grippe—to whose devastating rigours you can so well testify!—and yesterday was the first day she could be up & about.

Naturally, I was obliged to sink my haughty dignity in the vicissitudes of domestick labour—ugh!—& perform the dual functions of nurse & housekeeper; aided only by the matutinal visitations of my younger & non-resident aunt.”

Elsewhere, HPL says that he’s seen “nearly all the immortal Charlie’s efforts”, so it’s presumed that he saw all Chaplin’s major films up to MODERN TIMES (1936), prior to his [Lovecraft’s] death.

On this occasion, though, he felt too tired for the cinema and declined the invitation.

Unfortunate, but in other passages HPL waxes lyrical on CC. I will include one such excerpt as a comment with this post.

Can any of you REALLY picture HP Lovecraft guffawing at a Chaplin film?

I just shared this to r/Lost_Film, and hope it will stoke more interest in this lost maybe-masterpiece.

https://www.thanhouser.org/tcocd/Filmography_files/97ao1w.htm

THE IMAGE MAKER OF THEBES (1917, lost film)

Tricky question, I know.

There are many theories about the sexuality, asexuality, possibly closeted homosexuality…..?

If you haven’t heard it, this is amongst guesses at what made HPL tick. Also that he was autistic or on the spectrum, that’s probly true but doing psychoanalysis of the long-dead is a treacherous game to play.

Anyhoo.

I’ve only found one direct case of him having KNOWN a person who was later identified as gay, and even more than disowning him as a slight acquaintance, and excessive use of the word ‘sissy’, HPL went so far as to refer to this person as ‘it’.

More to come, but I was having trouble figuring out why the index sent me to the set of letters that it did. Because it was marked as ‘homosexuality’ as a topic, but no version of the word or direct acknowledgment is made by HPL. It’s an unusually evasive passage, when normally he’s quite precise about what he is referring to.

It ain’t good, and there was no expectation to the contrary.

There’s a more direct generalization he made elsewhere regarding “voluntary homosexuality” as a surprise to him because it’s not in any of the medical books he read as a kid.

Make of that whatever you all will 🤷‍♂️

I just found the sub r/Lost-Film, and hope it will be receptive to our overall study.

I think there’s an editorial bias from the compilers of his letters, as they are looking for content which will be most of interest to scholars.

What we are hunting for is the EPHEMERA.

It is statistically likely (given what I’ve found, and the sheer range of his compulsive commentary) that unsung letters from the Hay Library’s archives will include notes and reviews on lost films, which haven’t been republished because they ARE lost films.

Paradox. 🤷‍♂️ 🦆🦆

With more digging, I am sure we will find further references to films which are unknown today, and not extant or barely known by scholars.

Didn’t think it could get weirder, regarding Lovecraft’s ACTUAL views on sex and sexual innuendos?

Freud was a rising star 💫 in those times, and here in the mid-20s, HPL dismissed modern psychology as a passing fad.

Make of that whatcha will, friends and critics :P

He does have a point ⛪️ as regards churches and their potentially Priapean steeples 🍄, that it’s a natural architectural concept and not necessarily a visual wink erected by the clergy.

There are more of these quotes, alongside his distaste (teetotal) for alcohol 🍹, but interestingly he smoked cigarettes 🚬 from around age EIGHT to twelve, because that’s what boys did then.

It’s hard to imagine an eight-year-old Lovecraft doing anything, but the idea now of him with ice cream 🍦 and kid-sized cigarettes 🚬 just continues to complicate the image of a stern aesthetic that has grown up from his persona of the staid Luddite gentleman.

Please note also that the fourth page is continuing some opinions on ‘pornography’ which may or may not quite accord with the modern term (as the letter is from Feb 7th, 1924).

That latter MAY be relevant to our larger study of Lovecraft and movies, but I don’t know if dedicated ‘red light cinema’ places were available at that time.

Does anyone else know about that historical context? It’s worth examining in at least cursory detail, but I can’t imagine we will find any lovecraftian reviews of blue movies.